Dawn's Early Light
by minor-league-fangirl
Summary: Dean Winchester's earliest memories are of the end of the world. When civilization reestablishes itself, it's a generally accepted rule that people keep to themselves. After he finds some guy who seems to have no recollection of the last ten years of Rebuilding, the world is suddenly plunged into further chaos. Human AU
1. Chapter 1

It seems fair to say that when the world falls to hell, it is an undeniable truth that it will rain. Not the slow, steady rain that lulls children to sleep, nor the mist that creates an impenetrable coating on everything, but the heavy torrent that creates sheets of near black at any hour of the day will most assuredly grace the dying civilization with its presence for days. The remaining survivors of the apocalypse must endure it with silence because how could one possibly move from the battle for life to such a mundane complaint as the weather? Each waits in brooding tension, anticipating the moment someone dares to voice their frustrations, so that they may lash out, despite the general agreement.

The first to mention the unbearable rain was a young boy. He had no one who would hold and comfort him, no one who would whisper reassurances in his ear and stroke his hair when he was frightened. The whole ordeal had drained everyone emotionally, leaving no room in their hardened hearts for a child with dirty feet. As the words, "Why won't it stop raining?" left Dean Campbell's mouth, the jackals descended, a horrifying melee of jeers and shouts swamping him. He covered his ears with his hands. As he squeezed his eyes, he made wish after desperate wish for them to leave him alone, for things to go back to normal, for his mama to return from the doctor's quarters. He was never allowed to go there, not even to visit. It had been a week since he had last seen his mama. His tears went unnoticed by the screaming horde.

As he sat in the middle of the former chapel, the room slowly fell silent, allowing even the final echoes ricocheting from the highest eaves to make their last cries. The boy dare not move, refusing to become the center of yet another fracas. His tears were spent, and he felt empty, surrounded by those who would expel him from the only safety known to them without a spare moment of regret.

Dean ignored the hand on his arm. His eyes were tightly shut, fear keeping him rigidly still.

"It's all right." The voice was a low growl, intimidating as he imagined the person to whom the gruff murmur belonged to. He shook the child's arm almost imperceptibly, and Dean raised his head just enough to meet brown eyes with his own red ones. The man nodded and stood, reaching out a hand to help the boy to his feet. He led Dean past a cluster that glared at the floor, but said nothing. The two sat in a pew in the corner of the sanctuary as the crowd returned to grumbling, with occasional shouts for action.

"You shouldn't be alone, kid," the man said. His dark hair was matted, as was most people's, and he had a full beard, edged with silver. Bushy eyebrows made his eyes look grave and humorless. He was enormous in the seat, legs pushing against the next row, while the child's dangled. "Where're your parents?"

The boy kept his eyes fixed on the hymnal splayed open on the ground surrounded by pieces of the wooden shelf that had rotted through. "My mama is still hurt. They won't let me visit her."

"And your dad?"

"I don't know."

The man stayed silent for several moments. Curious, Dean glanced at him. His hand curled around his mouth and into his moustache. His brow was furrowed, eyebrows knitted into one as he stared blankly at the enormous golden cross resting at the front of the chapel. There were no windows, only battery-powered lanterns and candles that created sharp contrasts and flickering shadows across his face, making him appear simultaneously harsh and troubled.

"Well, you can't just be riling folks up. Things are real tense now," he said slowly. His entire countenance seemed heavy, voice thick. "You just stick with me, until your mom's feeling better. We'll get through this alright." With a bitter snort, the man fell even quieter and seemed to speak only to himself as he muttered, "Just an apocalypse, after all. The human race has been worse off."


	2. Chapter 2

Dean grabbed his handgun and holstered it at his thigh. His waistband held the wood-handled knife he had found the past year, and his bag contained the supplies he would need over the next two days. After grabbing the shotgun and checking for ammunition, he ducked into the main room.

"I'm heading out."

John grunted. "Got everything?"

"Yes, sir."

"Check again. You get stuck, ain't a soul in the world who'll help you. And I'm not crawling down the mountain to drag your ass back up."

Dean nodded. "Yes, sir."

John grunted once more, raising his hand in dismissal before turning back to the maps taped to the wall. Every border was filled with notes, and the notebooks lying underneath held dates, coordinates, and important events.

More specifically, when towns had fallen and rebuilt. Many had never emerged from the apocalyptic rubble.

Dean checked his supplies once more before leaving the cabin, holding his gun and prepared to fire. After casting a wary eye around the area, he pulled the fake wall in front of the door, locking it in place.

The mountain path was steep. One side, against which the cabin was settled, was all but insurmountable. It was a rocky face, nearly vertical plummeting from the cliff-like peak to the patch upon which they had built. Surrounding the building site, trees provided thick cover, and a steep slope gave the advantage. There was, of course, the well and river to rely on nearby. John had chosen the site with great care.

Dean selected his steps with precision, avoiding the traps set up along the trail. Taking certain paths could lead to pits, snares, and, to Dean's ill conscience, massive bear traps. None of these were meant for wildlife, although they never lacked in game.

He hiked for several hours, waiting for the sun to reach high noon before taking a sharp right and walking towards the river. It took a few minutes searching to find the hollow tree that had been carved out three summers prior. He settled himself into the trunk and pulled out his lunch, leaning against the back of the tree. It was barely big enough to sit cross-legged, and his head was inches from the top. He took an hour to sit, eating strips of dried meat slowly and watching leaves drift lazily by on the river.

Eventually, he forced himself to his feet outside of the tree trunk and dropped the dingy brown canvas from the inside to cover the entrance. He dropped to his knees beside the river to splash his face. The icy droplets slowly carving down his back underneath the flannel shirt he wore made him shiver as he stood, adjusted his pack, and made the short trek back to the trail. He very carefully weaved around the pit that he had fallen into when he was about fifteen. John had finally come looking for him four days later. He had yelled at him for a while, telling him to find his own way out. When Dean couldn't, he had helped him out hours later. The hike back was held in a disgusted silence that had carried on for the rest of the week.

As he moved farther down the mountain, he increased his pace, long past the majority of booby traps John insisted upon.

At dusk, Dean reached the usual campsite where several trees and low shrubbery gave good cover, while still near the town's limits. He decided to settle his sleeping bag in the midst of the brush rather than climbing a tree as he knew would have were John with him. He actually preferred the trips without the ex-Marine: John would pitch an absolute fit to know that Dean would do something as foolhardy as sleeping on the ground without a watchman. Even so, Dean would rather face what went bump in the night than spend the night worried about falling out of a tree in his sleep. He used the pack as his pillow, grasping the knife in his right hand as he pulled branches to shape a canopy over himself. Ears primed for the smallest sounds, he closed his eyes and let himself drift off.


	3. Chapter 3

Static-filled tension controlled the days after the end of the world. The single battery-powered radio sat in the center of the shelf on the back wall, Bible and collection plates shoved to the side. At any given hour, a group of hopefuls kneeled in front of the little red piece of plastic, desperate for a blip to break the white noise. The radio remained at full volume, with a pile of fresh batteries gathered next to it, just in case. No one touched the radio's volume or power supply. It was the only beacon of hope for the human race that remained in the decaying church. Every night, the steady hum lulled those who could reach sleep into slumber. Every morning, the static filled their heads. Occasionally, the radio would run out of power or the shelf would begin to fail the fight against gravity and shift dangerously, disrupting the cheap wiring, and the static would break. Every head would snap up, hands stalling, ears strained for the tiniest sound. After a moment of absolute silence, someone would move to the radio and fix the problem. The static would resume as would the rest of the group. The only difference would be the little nick of doubt forced into their heads, countering the unwavering confidence that the world would survive.

Eventually, the static became the symbol of everything that the apocalypse had taken from them. Family, friends, homes, security, happiness, opportunity, civilization, fresh food, warm showers, clean clothes, privacy, everything that had been accepted as a right, taken for granted, or worked for disappeared in the chaos, leaving nothing but the static behind. The little radio that was supposed to tell them answers from another group of people, the government, anyone willing to save them only served as a reminder that no one cared for their lives anymore. The constant doubt it inspired began to eat at the desperate survivors. One day, they decided to turn it off, just for the night. Only the children slept that night. Everyone old enough to understand the consequences lay awake.

The next day, the static returned before dawn. The group returned to life as the current situation demanded. John Winchester, the hunter who helped organize the frightened mass and lead people to the church when chaos struck, walked into the pastor's office with two other accepted leaders, Bobby Singer and Ellen Harvelle, to discuss rations in the morning.

When the first earthquake had occurred, and warnings of mass destruction were sung through every TV and radio channel, the trio had called for food storage at a central location. They, along with a small group of trusted individuals, agreed upon the church that marked the exact center of town. One of the trusted individuals happened to be the pastor, who offered his office. They disguised the food in boxes marked as Christmas decorations and pushed it into every closet, storage bin, and hidden space (there were a surprising amount) they could find. Nonperishable items were hoarded, toiletries gathered in secret on the off chance that the doom criers were right. The pastor kept it all hidden, lying smoothly when necessary. It was unanimous that it must remain secret. No one believed that when the end of the world was nigh, the community would band together. It was a pessimistic, and unfortunately accurate, decision.

After the blue sky fell to steely storm clouds, and the earth violently shook more than it stood still, John and Ellen ran out with several others to find people and send them to the church. More than one had been injured, many were already dead, crushed or burned in their homes. John, himself, had been the one to lift the inconsolable mother from the car that her family had died in, saved only by the angle that a tree had fallen. She stared listlessly at the wall when he left her the church's doorway. Bobby had remained and boarded every window in the sanctuary. He ensured that the church was safer than the homes most people were running from. He also moved everything from closets to the pastor's office, set up an organized system, and equipped the door to the new storeroom with three locks, each with a different key, and enforced the door from the inside to prevent some idiot breaking in to steal food. The keys were entrusted to John, Ellen, and himself with the agreement of their previous council. Only two of the original group had not made it. One was the pastor. The other was a man named Samuel, whose wife and son had gone straight to the church when he had left. On the way, Deanna fell into a rut that had opened, landing with her left side on an exposed metal stake. When they reached the church, Deanna was taken to the Sunday school room, modified as the injury hub, while Dean was left in a pew.

Of the town's four hundred give or take population, about thirty were living in the church, three of whom were under thirteen. The food was plentiful, weeks of gathering and a final looting of local groceries and convenience stores paying off. None of them knew when it would be safe to leave, though. There were gangs of looters, earthquakes, intense storms… As box after box of food were opened, it became apparent that the situation was on a larger scale than previously thought. Rations were small.

Three days passed after the radio was first silenced before the sound became too much. Silently, Bobby limped to the front of the church, all eyes following him, and turned it off. They waited until the next afternoon, about five someone said glancing at their watch, before they turned it back on. The next day, everyone agreed to turn it off overnight to conserve batteries. It soon became a habit of turning it on every day from five to seven. One day, no one remembered to flip its switch. A week later, the batteries were taken to put in one of the lanterns.

The conversations switched from rescue to how to ensure everyone's survival when the church doors finally opened. Several people revealed the guns hidden in their waistbands and pockets. Decisions were made in meetings that lasted long through the night. Schedules were created. The largest debate, one that created anger and division through the group for several days after, was over government. That night, as the children pretended to sleep and the ones between thirteen and twenty eavesdropped at the door of the Sunday school room, shouts for and against a governing party were slung. Several called for Winchester to be in charge, as he had taken to leading the group early on. He had vehemently fought for no government.

"We counted on government once and look what happened! We are here because of our goddamned government and its choices." John clenched his fists, the Marine tattoo feeling like an electric wire under his clothing.

"We can't just not have one, though," someone had argued. "Who will upkeep laws, protect us from the lunatics?"

"You will," John answered calmly. "Each person looks out for his own household. Who you trust has consequences. We can divvy up the rations when we all split, help one another find shelter and learn defense techniques to defend their property. But I will not participate in reestablishing the shit government that fucked us all and left us to die."


	4. Chapter 4

Dean woke up before the sun. He lay perfectly still, hand clutching his knife as he stared through the tree limbs. For the most part, they covered the early morning sky. Only one star could be seen through the leaves, blinding against the inky blue. Dean just watched the star disappear as the sky began to fall from nearly black to a violent purple to red and pink. When the pink streaks began to mix with blue, he finally pulled himself up, shaking his sleeping bag out to get rid of the dirt. He grabbed a strip of jerky to eat as he walked and packed the rest of his supplies to move. The sun hadn't fully overtaken the horizon when he left camp.

He checked the area before he left the protection of the woods. Surveying the field in front of him carefully, he hovered at the line of trees for several minutes, gun at eye level. Deciding that it was safe, he lowered the gun and emerged into the blinding sunlight against the waist-level grass. He walked stiffly, exposed in the open expanse. Three sides of the field met the forest, limiting his ability to watch for others, while the far end lead to the unused road and remains of town. He barely finished his breakfast when he reached the cracked strip of asphalt, rivets revealing tufts of grass and wildflowers. It felt all too soon when he finally neared the town, where about ten people actually lived. The rest had spread out among the outlying farms and into the mountainous terrain. As a child, he had thought of the town as a trading post on the Oregon Trail he had seen in John's history books. Now, he knew how dangerous it was to be around people and unprotected. Not everybody had become as self-sufficient as the Winchester stronghold. They relied on no one for food, water, heat, or protection. For others, it wasn't that simple. It had taken a year after settling in the new area before John had decided to venture into town because he couldn't figure anymore ways to keep his clothes in usable conditions.

When Dean entered the store, he hovered at the door to check the occupants. Two people. One girl, a bit younger than he, stood near candles and blankets. She spared him a glance before lowering her gaze once more. The old man behind the counter had twitchy eyes and restless fingers. His hair was thin, and he looked between the two suspiciously.

"Hey, kid." He raised a basket from behind the rickety wooden counter and shoved it forward. "You know the drill."

Dean reluctantly dropped both guns into the basket, the small clang of the barrels hitting the wire like a stone in his stomach. The knife remained underneath his shirt. The old man pulled the basket back and under the counter before looking at Dean pointedly.

Dean pulled his pack to the counter and removed the furs that he and John had collected. It was their form of payment. Everyone had to have something, as money was all but useless nowadays. Canned fruits were big in this area, as was meat. Few people in the surroundings had the skill and mind to catch as many big animals and skin them as cleanly as John, however, so he and his charge had the market for them.

The man checked each hide carefully and recounted them twice. Finally he bundled them together. "Your usual order, then?"

Dean grunted and nodded, shoving his hands in his pockets as he turned to face the shop, back against the wall, to wait. The girl never moved, simply flipped through the blankets several times, occasionally casting him a quick glance. He stiffened when a man, far older, probably John's age, walked in. He walked with an assured air about him, his mostly bald head reflecting the sunlight through the windows. He shot Dean a nasty smile as he dropped a curved knife into a basket before walking towards the food. The teenager stared at him, wary of the threat he posed.

"You'd do well not to be obvious." Dean startled and turned back to the counter. The old man smirked. "Mr. Zachariah is quite happy to obey the rules fully in my establishment. Unlike some." Dean's cheeks flushed guiltily, serving to widen the shopkeeper's uncomfortable smile. "Two shirts, two pairs of heavy duty boots, and I think your old man will appreciate the leather jacket I hunted up this time." Dean nodded and looked over the items. The shirts were as they usually were, sewn by one of the women who lived in town. They were always a heavy flannel fabric, but the colors and patterns varied depending on what the woman managed to get her hands on from her husband that traveled to other settlements. These two were plaid, one red, one black and yellow. The boots were rough, as was expected, but they would hold better than if they were made by anyone but the half-crazed hermit who coincidentally lived on the mountain next to theirs. The jacket was definitely pre-world-being-destroyed. It had the even seams of factory sewing machines and was soft from age. It looked strong though. Dean tugged at the arm, expecting a tear. It barely moved under his grip. He looked it over before looking up.

"Where was this?"

"One of the old houses. Girl found it in a plastic bag, managed to keep out the bugs and water. It should do nicely until your next visit."

Dean nodded and shoved it all into his bag. He waited for the man to return his weapons and checked them over carefully. Looking between the girl, still looking at the five available blankets, and 'Mr. Zachariah', Dean left. Thankfully, this trip, he only had to visit the one store. Every now and then, he was sent with supplies to trade with others personally, unnerving him whenever he was alone with someone.

He walked away from the town quickly, shotgun resting on his shoulder. He was as grateful as ever to reach the tall grass, ready to get back into the safety of the woods he knew well.


End file.
